NORTH SALT LAKE – City officials are interested in cleaning up the city’s west side.

As part of that process, the city council and redevelopment agency both approved early plans for the Legacy Highway Urban Renewal project area at Tuesday’s meeting. The plans include ideas for improving the project area, which is located at the intersection of Center Street and Redwood Road.

“We want to clean up that part of the city,” said North Salt Lake Mayor Len Arave. “This is a step in the process.”

For city officials, the first step was commissioning an independent agency to do a blight study on the area last fall. The affected area covers nearly 40 acres on the city’s west side, including a space that used to be occupied by the local gun club.

The area was declared blighted. According to state code, that means being it is in a condition that “substantially impairs the sound growth of the municipality, retards the provision of housing accommodations, or constitutes an economic liability or is detrimental to the public health, safety, or welfare.”

This can include vacancies, building code violations and deterioration of buildings.

Early improvement efforts by the city will include elements such as new curb and gutter, sidewalks and pedestrian lighting.

Further improvements, as well as incentives for developers to build in the area, will be a later step in the process.

“The community development agency will handle that,” said Arave.

According to Arave, the current cleanup efforts have been inspired in part by one of the property owners in the project area.

“There’s an interest right now involved with the property,” he said. “It’s too early to go into details, but the main owner would like to get something moving.”